Accidents Happen
by Kuneko
Summary: A dark accident during the Starry Night Festival brings Chase and Molly together for an unforgettable night - that neither of them wanted. [Animal Parade Oneshot, Slightly Crack-y, written for the Starry Night Secret Santa event on Tumblr!]


/**Author's Note: **This was a prompt from sassmasterkurapika over on Tumblr for the Harvest Moon Starry Night Secret Santa 2014 event! They asked for a ChasexMolly fic, I wrote them… something… yeah. As I mentioned in the summary, this fic toes the line of crack, so you may have to suspend your disbelief at times. Still, this was a _lot _of fun to write, and I'm already excited to participate again next year. Enjoy the fic, and happy holidays to you wonderful readers! All the best in 2015! **End Author's Note/**

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><p><strong>Accidents Happen<strong>

It was rare to see Chase get worked up about anything.

One time, he'd been finely chopping sticks of celery when strands of blonde hair escaped the clutches of his hairclips, momentarily blinding him, almost causing him to lose a finger. Another time, he'd dropped a brand new set of wine glasses and had his ear chewed off by Hayden. Then there was, of course, the time he had absent-mindedly – though I'm fairly certain his mind was not so much 'absent' as it was 'completely wasted' – put out a cigarette on the bar's countertop, nearly setting the place aflame. Yes, that incident was _especially _memorable.

Chase's reaction, everyone of those times? He shrugs, and then tells you, with maddening, _blood-boiling _non-chalance: "Accidents happen."

So, to see this avatar of chaos show up on my doorstep, hands shaking, eyes darting from side to side, lips trembling, hair disheveled and forced under a hastily-donned knit cap, the words "I screwed up, oh Goddess, _I screwed up,_" tumbling out of his mouth, I realized I had to see what was going on. Even if it meant, regrettably, interrupting the Starry Night I was spending with Gill. My boyfriend of six months and I were in the middle of a romantic home cooked meal (Tomato and Squid Stew, Gill's _favourite) _when the frantic knocking – no, _banging – _reverberated through my farmhouse, a prelude to the horrific twist my evening was about to take. Lucky for Chase, I _hated _tomatoes.

Immediately, Chase blanched as he glimpsed Gill behind me, dabbing his mouth with a napkin. "Molly," he said breathlessly, "I need to talk to you."

"Uh… Go for it." I made a flourish with my hands, telling him to get on with it.

"Alone. Outside."

"What?"

Pointedly staring at Gill, his blue eyes wide and electric, he repeated in a desperate whisper, "_Outside._"

Gill looked annoyed, but I threw him my most pacifying smile, along with an eye-roll that said 'Sit tight, this'll only take a minute'. Whatever Chase wanted – and I had a _pretty _good idea of what it'd be – it wouldn't take long. I grabbed my winter parka and followed him out the door, trying to minimize the smirk playing on my lips.

Heh.

I could see _exactly _how this was going to go. After all, it was such an _obvious _scenario: why _else _would a young man go out into the cold, march up to a girl's house in the black of night, interrupt her dinner date on the most romantic of festivals, demand to speak with her away from her boyfriend's prying eyes, if not to make a desperate confession of his undying lo—

"I killed Maya."

"Sorry, Chase, I just don't—Wait, what the crap?"

Chase knew I had heard him the first time and didn't waste his breath repeating himself. "And I need to borrow a shovel."

Either the blustery December wind had chosen that _exact _moment to pick up, or blood had rushed to my ears in a state of panic. Either way, there was an uncomfortably long stretch of time before any more could be said.

"Chase… W_hat_ _in the name of the Harvest Goddess are you talking about?!_" I barked, then kicked him in the shin, because the part of my brain that demanded answers _also _demanded violence. "Is this some kind of sick joke?! You— _Explain yourself_!" I kicked him in the other shin this time, spreading the pain evenly.

"Ouch, Molly! _Molly!_" he pressed his face uncomfortably close to my own, his freckles as plentiful as the stars overhead, "Just get a shovel," he hissed through his teeth, his words taking vaporous form in the cold winter air, "And I'll explain on the way."

"'On the way'?" I recoiled into my door, "Where are you taking me, psycho?"

Chase let out a familiar scoff, as if this was just another one of our peppery exchanges at the Brass Bar, and answered with a condescending drawl, "Molly, do I seriously need to spell it out to you?". He said it with the same tone of voice he had used to answer when I had asked him once where almond milk comes from – 'Molly, do you seriously not know? _Almond cows. _They're cows the size of almonds that you stomp on like grapes to get wine. Only you get almond milk instead. Don't you know _anything? _Yeesh.' (A quick trip to Horn Ranch later and I discovered that there were no such thing, and that was the day I had decided, with certainty, that Chase was a jerk-face.)

I gave him a blank stare, hoping that he was once again pulling my leg. Chase's teeth clamped down again as he said: "We need to bury the body, don't we?"

I wasn't sure why 'I' had become 'we'; I wasn't sure why Chase felt that I, above everyone else, deserved to be included_; _And I sure as _hell_ wasn't sure why I felt a twinge of giddiness upon finding out that I _was_.

# # #

Chase told me the story, punctuated by the cracks of twigs and the crunch of snow underfoot, as we plodded through Fugue Forest, following freshly-made toboggan tracks in the snow. How would I sum it up? Easily: Maya cannot take a hint.

Apparently, being the grumpy old man that Chase is, he had gone to the Ocarina Inn to spend Starry Night with a solitary meal and a home-brought flask of mulled wine. Colleen & Jake were out, leaving their sugar-sweet (and similarly single) daughter in charge. Imagine Maya's delight when her lonely night was interrupted by the unwitting object of her affection as he walks through the doors – alone. Having fought off the insistent girl and her come-ons all year, Chase was understandably exasperated. Maya takes it upon herself to turn their little evening alone into a date night, offering to share a meal with him. Chase - whose heart I was starting to suspect pumps venom instead of blood - gives her his most sardonic smile and orders a Toadstool Soufflé, knowing full well that Maya is _deathly _allergic to toadstools. Chase is certain that Maya will see what he's doing, and promptly take a hint.

Maya did nottake a hint.

My eyes were growing steadily wider and my jaw dropping steadily lower as Chase recounted the story. It was made only more sinister by our environment: Fugue Forest at night did not offer peace of mind, with the creaking limbs of its trees and the scarce moonlight trickling in through the canopy of pine needles overhead. A distant part of myself wondered, desperately, if maybe this was all a hoax, and that Chase had some kind of romantic surprise planned for me… that involved, for some reason, going very, very deep into the woods. The more rational part of me believed that I was probably going to be murdered.

Then I saw the body.

Maya's dead body.

… So, she didn't look _so _bad: her cheeks and neck were inhumanly puffy, and her skin had turned a shade of sickly pink, which matched ludicrously well with her frilly pink dress. If anything, it completed the 'giant cupcake' look she was obviously going for; I didn't say any of this out loud, because, well, the part of my brain that filtered out stupid comments was working overtime tonight. For my first encounter with a corpse, I thought I was holding up pretty well – but maybe that was something I should have been more worried about.

Maya lay in the snow in a thicket of thin trees. It was deep enough in the forest that no one would immediately notice anything, and thankfully the rest of the town was too preoccupied with the evening's festivities to even be out here. I saw a child's toboggan sticking out of the snow – it must have been Taylor's.

Chase seemed to be waiting for some kind of reaction.

"Well… Okay. Murder is clearly not your forte."

…I hadn't _meant _to say that, but before I could stop myself, the words were streaming out of my mouth. Apparently even being alone in the woods with the company of a dead body didn't do much to change our dynamic. "I mean, you left a trail to _exactly _where the body is, you dragged her out here without _any _kind of cover, you apparently forgot to bring a shovel the first time, _and_ you're not even wearing winter boots!" I gestured wildly at the sandals-and-socks that Chase perpetually wore.

Judging by the bewilderment on his face, Chase had apparently not expected a dressing-down of his murdering proficiency.

"I panicked!" he bristled, "And I didn't bring you here to criticize my _technique, _Molly. I don'tplan on making a _profession _of this!"

I suppose it concerned me that my first thought was _not _'Oh Goddess, Chase killed Maya', but instead, 'Oh Goddess, Chase did a _piss-poor job _of killing Maya'. I could feel that pit in my stomach – I _could! – _but I probably should have been… sadder? Yes, she was an annoying twit whose vocabulary and syntax apparently capped at age eight, and yes, it was exceptionally irritating to see her hovering around Chase all the time, but she didn't deserve to _die, _did she? … I made a mental note to pay a visit to Doctor Jin's tomorrow. For a mental exam.

"Then please, _please _enlighten me on this: Why in the Goddess' name did you think to come to _me?_"

Chase looked suddenly sheepish. He kicked the snow around his feet, his socks probably soaking. "I wasn't sure who else to go to."

I planted my hands on my hips. "Am I supposed to be flattered by that?"

Of course, Chase wasn't quite done sneering. "Look, who else was I going to find with access to a shovel and the man-arms to wield it?"

"_Man-arms?_" I thumped the end of the shovel into the snow, gripping it like a spear, then taking a step towards him menacingly. "Do you want to join your little 'accident' over there? I'm sure my _man-arms _can dig a big enough ditch to fit you both!"

"It was a compliment!" he tried to assure me, wringing hands that I was just noticing had been outfitted with a pair of mismatched gloves, "My brittle little wrists would snap in half just trying to hold that thing. _My _arms are made for mixing drinks and wiping glasses, while _yours _are made for… digging in the dirt and shoveling horse crap."

I scoffed. "Goodness, thank you for making my life sound _so _glamorous."

"Molly," Chase pressed the ball of his hand on his forehead and rubbed. He was tired, I could tell, and I decided to bite my tongue. "Can we just… do this? The sooner we're done here, the sooner you can go back to Gill and whatever that atrocity was that he cooked."

"Tomato and Squid stew," I grumbled, marveling at his endless capacity to be snarky at a time like this.

"The most unholy of unions since Craig and Ruth," he muttered under his breath, "Let's get this over with."

# # #

The petite girl was heavier than I could have ever expected, but I suppose that was the combination of the cold and the rigor mortis. Ick. Chase and I rolled her into the freshly-dug ditch, our shoulders rubbing up against each others'. As Maya rolled onto her stomach, her face finally hidden from view, I could feel her cursing me from beyond the grave, and I couldn't say I blamed her: here I was, spending the Starry Night with her one and only beloved. Sure, grave-digging wasn'tparticularly romantic, but something told me that Maya wouldn't have minded so much, if it meant being with Chase. And yeah, there was something pretty sad about that.

Chase and I stood over the ditch, peering into it. Snow had begun falling at some point during the night, and flecks of it now glistened on Maya's corpse. It would have been pretty if not for, y'know, the corpse.

"Well… Anything to say for yourself, mister?" I glanced sidelong at Chase, who shook his head vigorously, his hat threatening to fall off.

"No, no, no." He made x's in the air with his hands, "No eulogizing, no lamenting, no waxing remorse. We're not here to _mourn, _Molly, we're here to do away with evidence."

In spite of myself and the situation at hand, I chuckled. "You are _cold, _Chase."

He shrugged in response. "Accidents happen."

_ There _it was.

# # #

By the time we were back at my farmhouse, cold and exhaustion had settled into my bones, numbing my body and mind. At least, that's what I told myself was happening, because under any other circumstance I'd probably be more mortified that I had just helped bury a body. I trusted my subconscious to make up for it with nightmares later, just to avoid suspecting myself a sociopath.

"Well, G'night Chase," I said sleepily as I stood on the doorstep. Chase looked several times more worn out than I did, despite doing a fraction of the work. But then, unintentional murder probably takes a toll on a guy. Against all reason and rationale, I felt sorry for him as he stood there in his mismatched winter wear, the wind playing with the tassels of his knit cap.

"There _is _another reason why I came to you," he seemed unable to look me in the face, instead focusing on my boots.

"And that would be?"

"You're…" he mumbled the next part, the word shredded into nothingness by the wind as it picked up. He cleared his throat and repeated himself, "You're… dependable."

I croaked out a laugh, mirthlessly. "I'm not sure I want to know what I did to make you think I was dependable for… well, this."

"You never ratted me out to Hayden. About, you know, nearly setting the bar on fire."

Huh. I had been certain that Chase had long since dismissed the memory. "That _is _true," I crossed my arms, amused, "You would have been totally fired for that. So because I covered for you _one _time, you decided I was trustworthy enough to be made an accomplice in your homicidal plot?" Dammit, Molly, this should _not _be flattering.

"Something like that," he mumbled, still not quite meeting my eyes.

Another pang of tiredness hit me. I put a hand to my head. "Good night Chase. Thank you for the…" A rattled sigh escaped me as I pondered the words, "…most _memorable _Starry Night I've ever had the honour to be a part of."

Chase looked up, smiling, a little bit. "Good night, Molly. I'll let you know the next time I have a body that needs hiding."

My face paled.

"Too soon?"

"Go home, Chase." I rolled my eyes, concealing a grin of my own.

# # #

I climbed into bed next to Gill, who had put the leftovers away and tucked himself in. I wasn't even sure what time it was. "Baby, how easy do you think it is to get away with murder in Castanet?"

"Molly, whatever Chase did this time, it's not worth _murdering _him over. I've told you a thousand times." He mumbled tiredly, nuzzling his face into the back of my neck.

I reached around and stroked my boyfriend's white-gold hair. I felt his breath on my neck, a sudden reminder of just how alive we were.

"I know, I know," I failed to stifle a yawn, sleep beginning to blanket me like a fresh coat of snow, "I was just asking… for a friend…"

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><p><em><strong>AN: **__And then the Witch finds Maya's body and resurrects her to be the first in an army of zombies that will conquer Castanet- __**Ehem**__, er, I mean, leave a review and let me know what you thought! _


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